Butter Chicken Curry (Murg Makhani)

Butter chicken curry is a rich, creamy, tomato-based curry. It's not particularly known for it's spiciness, but you can adjust this how you like. Though I'm a firm believer that not all curries need to have chilli heat (mostly because I'm not good at handling it). 

Miso Pork Ribs with Korean Glaze

During the coronavirus pandemic, local companies around my area have been adapting - as I'm sure they have around the world. My favourite being local restaurants temporarily turning into takeaways (which I obviously support, triple fried chicken burger with triple cheese and triple bacon anyone?). A very close second favourite conversion, is butchers doing deliveries. Every couple of weeks, me and my housemate place an order for the likes of sausages, steaks, burgers, koftas and beef mince. This week, we decided to get a rack of ribs for our Saturday night dinner and the butchers did not disappoint. We got a rack of very meaty ribs. 

Soy & Honey Lamb Shank

Turkey Katsu

Egg Foo Young (Cantonese Style)

Toulouse Sausages

I'm reposting this recipe as Toulouse sausages are one of my favourite tubular meats. Here, I've served them simply, with carbonara with homemade pasta. But, they'd have a great starring role in a sausage casserole and are a key ingredient in one of my favourite French dishes: cassoulet. 

Sweet Soy Glazed Pork Ribs

This recipe is delicious. I know that sounds sort of big headed. But it is. It's sweet, salty, moreish.
Don't be limited to pork ribs though. The glaze is also good with fried chicken, salmon or prawns.

DIY Doner Kebab

Takeaways may be an easy (and tasty?) option on a Friday night, but they're so expensive. Especially compared to making your own versions at home which are almost guaranteed to taste better.

Pizza Bianca Funghi (white pizza with mushrooms)

White pizza has fast become a favourite of mine. I first had one when I went to the Italian restaurant Zizzi and fell in love. It comes away from the classic tomato flavour that crosses between all other pizzas, whether they're thin and crispy or deep and fluffy, but it certainly doesn't lose anything. What I've done here it to really simplify it but it can be easily adapted and played around with to incorporate other ingredients and tastes. 

Easy Egg Fried Rice

For me, egg fried rice is one of the regular dishes I feast on when I order Chinese takeaway on a Saturday night. But it's so simple, cheap and versatile to make yourself. It can be made simply as a side dish (as I've done in these photos) or spruced up to make a meal in its own right.

Salami with fennel (final week)

They're ready! And a lot sooner than I expected it to be. Originally, I thought it'd take 6-10 weeks but in less than 3 weeks the salami had lost over 30% of their weight through moisture loss - meaning they're ready for nomming on. 

Salami with fennel (week 2)

Week 2 of my salami project and they seem to be doing well. I had a little scare with some green mold appearing on the topside of the bend. So, straight away I wiped it off with some vinegar and kitchen paper. Then I set about doing a little bit of research. 

Duck Pastrami

Traditionally, pastrami is made using beef but, when I was looking for the meat to make it with, duck stuck out as something a bit more unusual and exciting. I wanted to go for a Chinese-style flavouring, so in the brine I used spices that would mirror those in Chinese cuisine. The chilli doesn't come through that well, so if you want a bit of heat in there I'd recommend to try adding some dried chilli flakes to the spice rub on the outside... just be careful of how much you use.

Roasted Peppers

Recently, I seem to be cooking with roasted peppers a lot more, particularly when I make rogan josh paste and red pesto. So, when I found a couple of peppers in the bottom draw of my fridge, that weren't looking particularly great, I thought I'd give it go myself rather than throw them away. As well as using them in curry pastes and pesto, these can be enjoyed as part of an antipasti or on top of a pizza.

Did I mention it's stupidly easy to do?

Homemade Pancetta

For a while now I've been listening to a BBC Radio 4 podcast called The Kitchen Cabinet, hosted by Jay Rayner. It's a panel show with a live audience where they travel over the UK and discuss various food topics - food science to food history to current trends. 

My favourite panellist is Tim Hayward - a food writer and broadcaster. Billy recently got me Tim's latest book, Food DIY. And it is amazing. I've never done, or even wanted to do, so many recipes from one book. He covers smoking, curing, pickling, fermenting and homemade takeaways including doner kebab. 

This book particularly makes me happy because I'm so bad at DIY around the flat, and this is something I can actually do.

Sweet Chilli Chicken Noodles

After watching the BBC series Exploring China: A Culinary Adventure, with Ken Hom and Ching-He Huang (or, as Billy calls, "that dad and the girl"), I was inspired to do a bit of Chinese cooking myself. Well, I say "Chinese" but I'm in no way claiming this to be a traditional Chinese recipe. It's just something I thought would work well.

Not all Chinese cookery involves strange long list of ingredients. This recipe certainly doesn't, and can be cooked in 5 minutes flat.

Beef Biryani

This is a rice-based curry dish that is cooked all in one pot. So there's not much washing up to do afterwards. A totally good thing when I've got a week off work to do other things...

Yesterday we went to Winchester, where I did my Fine Art degree. This would've been made a great little picnic meal, but our decision to go was only made first thing in the morning, so there was absolutely no time to do anything.

Thai Red Chicken Curry

Today's been a busy day, with eating a hog roast barm and buying ox cheeks at the Southsea Food Festival to watching the Olympic torch go past my flat. The hog roast was run by the same people that do the farmers' market... I get one every time and the lads recognise me now. I'm hoping that means I'm now a regular and get extra crackling.

Almond and Chocolate Tartlets

Last week I bought myself a Kenwood Chef. Not as good looking as a KitchenAid, but it's performance is better (I realise that may sound a bit bias). And, after giving it pride of place in my kitchen I was itching to use it.

Now, I've got loads of ground almonds in the cupboard, so the challenge was to find a recipe that meant I could use both the almonds and the Chef. Luckily, my Mum and sent me some food magazines that I subscribe to, but hadn't changed the delivery address yet. In Delicious., happened to be a recipe for Amandine Tart - basically a fancy Bakewell Tart without the jam.

Homemade Pizza

I definitely need to make pizza from scratch more often. Making pizza dough is just about as satisfactory as making bread, but without the long wait. As far as toppings go, you can pretty much choose what your heart desires. Next time, I thinking of cracking an egg into the middle.  

My recommendation for toppings? Keep it simple. Don't overload it. Use mozzarella.